


Modern Loneliness

by RedheadedBlondeBitxh



Category: Fallout 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedheadedBlondeBitxh/pseuds/RedheadedBlondeBitxh
Summary: Deacon finds a familiar face and damn-near throws himself down the very vault she came out of.
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor, Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	1. A Cheat?

**Author's Note:**

> Unsure if I want to keep this in the same universe as AAO or not.
> 
> So consider it a stand alone for now.

It was almost uncanny, not to mention heart-breakingly cruel. Deacon didn’t know what to expect when he’d heard that someone had crawled out of Vault 111, but it certainly wasn’t this.

As soon as he had seen her hair, he had known. It was the color of a wild-fire, burning angry and bright against the bleakness of the wasteland. If that wasn’t bad enough, when he’d seen her collapse on the floor of her old living room and actually had the chance to see her face, he felt sick. He had almost thrown up at the horrifying realization of _exactly_ who Barbara had been modeled after.

His wife had confided in him that she was in fact a synth escaped from the Institute only a few months before her death. It was the very confession which ultimately led to her untimely demise, even if Deacon had never intended to let the truth slip. But even after revealing her synthetic nature, she had never talked about her time at the Institute, despite the fact that she plagued by frequent nightmares of the place.

He had accepted her hesitance to discuss her experience there without question, not wanting to re-traumatize her by forcing her to share anything until she was good and ready. But by God he wish she had. It would have at least prepared him for the chance that he might have the misfortune to run across her god damn doppelganger out there in the wasteland.

It was clear that Nora was significantly different from Barbara, much more aggressive and brash, certainly not prone to subtly or shyness, but to see the woman run across the Commonwealth into certain danger all while wearing his dead wife’s face was disconcerting to say the least.

It didn’t help that her mannerisms were so breathtakingly similar, her voice bearing the same easy confidence as she joked with her new friends. When Deacon had seen how she looked at that damn Brotherhood brute of all people, it nearly broke his heart, before he had to remind himself that it _wasn’t_ Barbara and that they were completely different people, despite their obvious shared genetics.

When Magnolia had confided that the very man cozying up to his dead wife’s doppelganger was a synth himself, Deacon had nearly burst out laughing.

It was cruel and malicious and down right _ironic_. Except that by Magnolia’s account, Danse wasn’t simply some copy of another person, but an individual in his own regard.

Deacon couldn’t help but feel spiteful about that fact.

That the woman he had loved with every ounce of his existence had been a copy, a clone of the very person the Institute seemed hell-bent on leading straight to their front door.

The Railroad had been trying to pin down Kellogg for years, but only a couple weeks after waking, Nora found the grizzled old mercenary practically waiting for her on a silver platter in Fort Hagen.

The fact was worrisome, to say the least, and at worst, it was down right terrifying.

Deacon felt his heart damn near break when Nora had looked up to Danse with that achingly familiar expression that Barbara had once reserved for him.

It didn’t matter. Nora was not, by any account, his Barbara. No matter how shockingly similar they looked.

Deacon made a mental note to destroy whoever the hell had modeled his wife in Nora’s image only to unleash her on the Commonwealth mere years later. If not for the synths, he knew he’d destroy the Institute for his Barbara and for her alone. Even if it killed him.


	2. A Coward?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn't going to continue this but .... Ooops

Deacon was a lot of things. A liar? Certainly. A cheat? At times. Hell, some people might down right find him to be a menace.

All of them were accurate, more or less.

At least they were congruent with the visage he put out to the world. But he had never once thought himself a coward. That was, until he saw her that first night in Sanctuary. It was like being hit in the head with a baseball bat made out of cold, cruel irony.

While she was not the woman he had once loved, but God and all that was holy, she was the spiting image of his wife. Nora was not, by any accounts, Barbara. He knew this more than anything in the world.

Barbara was long gone, fallen victim to the fates of time and the corruption of humanity. It was obvious in more ways than one how different they were. How could they not be? Nora had grown up rough, even considering the advancement of the world that she had come from. By her own admittance, she had to fight tooth and nail to survive, learning from an early age that you had to do things yourself if you wanted to stay alive.

Barbara was the opposite, a synth from the Institute who had everything provided to her, even at the expense of her freedom. Where Nora had grown up in an abusive, terrifying home, Barbara had the benefit of having never been afraid of getting the tar beat out of her by someone who was tasked with protecting her. Sure, there was the unique trauma and fear that the Institute imparted on synths, given how an otherwise unassuming string of letters and numbers could render them completely lifeless.

At risk of having her experience erased at the drop of a hat, Barbara was demure and patient, always trying to please people. Nora, in direct opposition, had become a fighter and protector, having grown up around extensive violence.

Nora was not, by any stretch of the imagination, Barbara.

But with the Lord, or Atom, or Fate as his witness, Deacon could not help feeling protective of her, just as if she were. He wanted to tell Nora the truth a thousand times since seeing her crawl out of the Vault, to scream and cry and confess his sins as if she _were_ the woman annihilated by his old gang all those years before. It would be cathartic, at least.

When he had saw her kiss the damn Paladin in the Old State House, it had almost killed him on the spot. Not that they would have noticed, they had been too engrossed in staring lovingly in each other’s eyes.

Deacon had almost pressed his lips to hers the first night she had broken into HQ with Valentine. It was just after they had received their first ‘package’ together. Everyone, including Glory, had been drinking, and anytime the infamous Angel of Death was involved in something regarding alcohol, it was sure to be a fun time. Nora had been explaining the rules of poker to them with a giddy drunk smile, nudging him and sitting far closer than decency would dictate.

It wasn’t her fault. There was no way she even realized how breathtakingly near she had seated herself next to him. He was certain if she scooted a single quarter of an inch in his direction, he would implode. Just as he felt the tickle of her knee brushing against his, she turned to face him, meeting his eyes with an amused smirk.

“I’m just trying to see your eyes, handsome.” She had offered playfully, letting out a laugh that was so full of joy and uncharacteristic peace, as he had gone instantly still. At the quirk of her eyebrow Deacon had almost pulled her into a desperate, hopeless kiss before catching himself.

Sometimes he wondered if she would have let him. Just for the moment. Maybe even just for the night.

_Probably not,_ he had figured.

Nora was a flirt, sure, but he could see through the confident facade almost immediately. Besides, anyone with two eyes and a lick of common sense could see who she was in love with, and it certainly wasn’t him.

How could it be?

He was a liar.

He was a cheat.

More than anything, he wanted to tell her all of the secrets he had been hiding. He almost had, that night he had heard of her intention to turn over the plans for the Molecular Relay to the Brotherhood of Bigots. Deacon had a thousand things he wanted to confess to her before they were interrupted once more by the man who was rapidly becoming Deacon's least favorite synth.

The night he had seen her kiss Danse in the almost abandoned pilot quarters and drag him back to his room, Deacon felt one of the last slivers of his humanity die.

He didn’t want to be a person anymore.

He had to watch the woman he loved die not just once, not just when Barbara was brutally murdered as his old friends mocked him, laughing while he wept, but a second time by a woman wearing her face who went and fell in love with the worst possible person he could think of.

There was no shortage of secrets and revelations he had that would absolutely sway her back to the Railroad. 

Back to him.

Deacon had left the Prydwen that night, unwilling and unable to get whatever additional intel the Railroad needed. The thought of continuing to keep tabs on Nora after he had heard her whisper sweet promises to Danse was torture.

He had never thought himself a coward, but hearing Nora be mindlessly in love with a man that was so diametrically different from him and all he held dear, was heartbreaking enough to make him turn tail and run, the Railroad and their mission be damned.

A part of him knew what he was so afraid to admit. He had gone and fallen in love with her. And not just for how she looked just like his Barbara, but for all her obvious differences, and he would never tell her.

How could he? 

He was a coward.


End file.
